There no longer exists a person in this country whose life hasn't been touched by cancer. Even when a family's luck holds the threat at bay, friends, business associates, or acquaintances can still fall before this growing scourge.

I can think of no other place that has been taught this lesson as thoroughly as Butte County, South Dakota. According to statistics given at a 1996 cancer support group, there are more cases of breast cancer in that county than in any other in the state. As a life-long resident of the area, I have seen more than my fair share of friends and family face this deadly opponent.

Even before I understood what cancer was, I knew about it. There were warnings on cigarette packages and commercials on television. However, for me- like so many others in my small area of the world- cancer was a little more personal.

My great-uncle John stopped visiting Grandma and Grandpa because of it. He was never again going to tease my sister and I until I wanted to hit him. Grandma wouldn't have to say, "Oh, John, stop teasing the twins," anymore. This was what persuaded me cancer was a good thing.

Yes, for a while, I was convinced cancer was my friend. It couldn't have been as bad as everyone made it out to be. It had stopped Uncle John, after all, and Grandma couldn't do that every time. Cancer was getting the bum wrap, at least to my childish logic. Unfortunately, "my buddy" chose to make a move that would forever chance my point of view: it went after my grandparents.

My father's mother was the first to fall. A matter of months was all it took for disease to break her strong German will. By the time we discovered she was fighting cancer, the battle had already been waged. All we could do was wait for her surrender.

That surrender came in August and I had just turned seven. All the family had gathered. I think they wanted Grandma to know she was loved, but she only saw them as guests she should be up taking care of, not the other way around.

When Grandma died, I wasn't more than ten feet away from where it happened. As I sat in the living room next to the bedroom door, her life slowly slipped away until she was gone. The heart monitor went crazy. While I didn't understand death, I knew that shrill sound wasn't signaling her return to good health.

My mother sent the cousins and me outside. Grandpa came with us but I don't recall if one of the aunts or uncles brought him outside or if he came on his own. I just remember sitting on their patio/porch and watching him take his seat on their bench as if he was just waiting for Grandma to come outside and join him.

My younger cousins, both boys, spotted the trucks shortly after we'd settled on the porch. It shocked me to see Johnathan and Matthew playing in the dirt. How could those stupid plastic toys be more important than Grandma?

The longer I watched the more confused I became, until suddenly I wasn't perplexed at all. My puzzlement had drained away. In its place came rage- a primal, violent anger that demanded to be released. I opened my mouth to do just that when a low sound trapped my words in my throat.

A sob, one broken, heart-wrenching sob stopped my wrath cold. It wasn't my own or my sister's or my cousins'. My grandfather's body was the one shaking with the force of grief. I'd never seen him cry before; had never seen any man cry. Yet here was my grandpa weeping with a sadness that made my stomach ache.

I longed to hold him and comfort him. As I rose to go to him, I realized I didn't know how to ease his grief. How could I take away his pain at losing his wife of fifty years, the mother of his eleven children, his life-long partner? I didn't understand death or cancer or love. What comfort could I offer?

All I could do was stand there, feeling so helpless as those tears streamed down his face. My own tears came then and I made no attempt to stop them. In that moment, I understood what cancer meant. It was death-- the end of something or someone beautiful. It'd been wrong to celebrate it and the pain it caused. I've never cried like I did on that porch that day.

My grandfather died less than a year later. While I know he was almost eighty and in poor health anyway, a part of me still believes he would have fought the pneumonia off if cancer hadn't taken Grandma first. In a way it kill both James and Clara Wiles.

Since then, I've lost another grandfather and two great-aunts to this disease. I have watched some of my best friends learn to deal with the lost of a loved one due to cancer. No matter how they found their peace with it, they know, as I do, that once you've seen what cancer does you're never quite the same.